Wild Dolphins

A wild dolphin is a beautiful thing, unless you’re Congressman Young (R), Alaska, or the head of the American aquarium and zoo organization, or someone who loves marine mammals soooooo much that they’ve given their lives to studying them in captivity, or a doctor-turned-Congressman who seems to understand the scientific method like no one else. Luckily so for the rest of us, on that last count.

I’m not even halfway through an April, 2010 hearing on the educational value of dolphin shows, and it is already terribly disconcerting to hear our Washington leadership dance on the fence rail of whether there is any merit that outweighs the personal and species cost of keeping these magnificent animals in captivity. While their captive life spans are a fraction of what it is in the wild, their shortened lives should not be being someone’s “trained seal.” Ar ar ar ar ar.

The hearing is quite long, but chocked full of information and possibly misinformation. But I’ve edited down the entire hearing to 30 seconds that I consider to be the crux of the chasm between those who celebrate the rights of other species to living lives unharrassed by and independent of any human-referenced definition, on the one hand, and those who view animals as being here largely, if not exclusively, to serve humans, on the other.

Cong. Young doesn’t appear to want people to “let” dolphins “run around loose and wild. . .” I do. That is exactly what I want.